Review: pro-mis-Q-ous Wines

This new value label is hitting the market, hoping to entice consumers with good wine at very affordable prices. We tried two of the three bottles being sold. Here’s how they stack up. All three are non-vintage bottlings and source fruit from all over California. Expect to pay $11 to $13 for a bottle.

promisQous Pinot Grigio – The only named varietal in the promisQous stable, this is not a big success. Rough, rustic, and overwhelmingly tart, it lacks much in the way of structure. Still, it’s far more palatable with food: Try a spicy meal which can temper this wine’s unruly nature. (There’s also a White blend, which we’ve yet to review.) C-

promisQous Red – This blend of zinfandel, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and syrah is a bit of a mutt, but it’s a bit more of a success than the Pinot Grigio. With all those grapes you’d think this red would be a complicated beast, but it’s surprisingly simple. A palatable wine in its own way, it’s dominated by herbal character and a good slug of fruit, but it’s hardly going to knock anyone’s socks off. B-

Also note the common misspelling of this wine as “promisQuous” (and probably a number of other spellings, too).